Sunday, September 18, 2011

Books 37, 38 and 39

This book is part memoir, part "this is what it's like being a volunteer firefighter in small town America," part eulogy for those small towns themselves. The book started out well, but went downhill as Perry became more introspective and reflective. The vocabulary was actually relatively challenging, though, which was interesting for me since I don't usually find myself unsure of what words mean! Not particularly recommended.

I enjoyed Bank's writing style in this book. The sections work almost as short stories, but were connected very well in the end. I found myself able to relate to the struggles of the protagonist, and appreciated her eventual use of a self-help book to try to fix her life, comedically. This falls into the "I can see why this was a popular book" category, and was a quick, easy read.

I'm really, really torn about this book. The premise is very interesting: a boy, named Jack, is raised inside one single room, with no access to the outside world other than what his mother tells him and what he sees on TV. I was fascinated with the first half...and yet the second half was lacking. I appreciated that it was told from Jack's point of view...and yet at the same time, it didn't seem to work for the whole book as well as the author may have intended. The model of writing and building action and all that generally takes the reader up a slope, with a sudden drop towards the resolution near the end of the book. This one went more like this: / \. Up, peaking at the halfway point, and then right down. I've shared the book with my pal Tamera so that I could get her opinion on it to see if it was just me!

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I'm still on track to hit 52 books read this year! Hooray! My hope is that, by the time my husband and I move out of our house, my "to be read" pile will be minimal - this means I have two years of reading probably 75 books a year to catch up. Yikes!!